The Ginger
by Konflickted
Summary: OS It's funny how the past and present are so innately intertwined, such is the past and present of Crookshanks the cat. From his birth to the arms of Hermione, and everywhere in between.


A/N: Because someone somewhere complained that each and everyone of my stories didn't have a disclaimer on the top. We all know I didn't create the world, I only borrow it for my own purposes. If you think otherwise, you ought to drown yourself in a mud puddle. Kisses.

**Memoirs of a Ginger Cat**

When I was born, it became pretty clear that my mother didn't want me. I was clearly different then the other children she had, all who looked exactly like her in every way, down to their black hair as dark as a raven's wing. I was clearly an outcast with my ginger colored hair.

As if being a ginger wasn't bad enough, I was a runty baby. You would think that that my small size would have been a god-send for my mother, who delivered me the regular way with strong contractions and strong pushing, but no! Apparently she measured her feminine and motherly worth by the pain that she endured delivering each of us. Without drugs, we would hear the rest of our lives. Never mind that there were no drugs available to her, sans one, but she swears she never touched the stuff.

Each of my sisters and brothers were huge in comparison to me, delivered in my mother's warm, safe bed at home, without a care in the world. But not me, no. It was too much for her to bear, I suppose. She must have felt that I was different before I was even born, because though she was in hard labor she left her bed and my siblings and headed to the edge of our loft. A strong contraction and out I slipped, smooth as butter, from her body. Mother didn't even wait for me to land a story height below. She returned to my sisters and brothers, continued to labor.

To this day, many believe that she was aiming for the pitchfork that had been left carelessly below. Lucky for me, my mother had terrible aim and I just missed the tines of the pitchfork, barely. The impact with the hay burst my water bubble and immediately I begun to cry. I was cold, wet, and alone. I had fallen at least fifteen feet and I was scared. These were my first impressions of life, and it was disappointing. To top it all off I was cast into a cold, dark world alone. I was blind.

Well, perhaps, blind is being a bit over dramatic. You see, my eyes hadn't opened yet. But at a few moments old, I had no idea that they ever would. I didn't have the warm body and teat of my mother reassuring me. I just had stiff, careless hay poking me quite roughly.

"Aren't you just a little darling," a voice said when I begun to cry. I felt the hay shift and I felt something close on my head. I was lifted and carried by something somewhere off the hay. I was dropped on my head, but the landing was soft. A large, warm tongue began to lick me and inside I feared the worst. The creature, who was most certainly not my mother, as its smell was far different, tasted me. It actually tasted me.

"Please don't eat me," I cried in my tiny little cry.

"I am not going to eat you," the voice said quietly. "I saw your mother drop you, and since I lost one of my own babies this go round, I figure I will take you as my own."

"What are you?" I asked quietly as I snuggled against my new brother and sisters.

"We are dogs," my new brother told me as we headed for our first meal together.

"Am I now a dog?" I asked.

"For all intents and purposes, yes, you are a dog," my new mother said as she nuzzled us against her.

For the first days of life, I had no idea what made me different from my mother and siblings. We ate together, slept together, and played blindly together in our whelping box. It was a blissful time in my life.

Slowly, our eyes opened and for the first time in our lives we saw each other and our mother. She was a beautiful mutt with lots of different shades of brown and gold hair. She had kind eyes. I loved her more than life itself.

Mother was owned by a pair of farmers who grew all sorts of vegetables and such for sale. One day, when we were all six weeks old, my brother, sisters, and I were gathered up and placed in a crate. Mother was crying, though she insisted that they were happy tears. She stuck her nose in the crate.

"It's time for you four to go off to your new families," mother said. With that, she was gone from our sights. The farmers were nice enough people, but they just didn't know how to speak animal very well. Sometimes, they were so close, but other times they were just as stupid as the rocks and trees that didn't listen very well either.

Plucked from my brother and sisters, I was placed in another box, surrounded by raven haired strangers. I had seen them up in the loft during my weeks as a dog and I had been curious about them. It seemed odd to be in the box with these monster sized_ rafter walkers _as Brother and I secretly called them.

"You are Reject, aren't you?" One black haired asked me. "You're our rejected kitten brother, aren't you?"

"I'm a dog," I said. They all laughed.

"You're a cat, stupid," He said. I guess I knew deep down that they were right. I was a cat and I was rejected, but I didn't want to say anything. I just curled up into a tiny orange ball in the corner and ignored the stupid kittens. I didn't want to admit to anything.

One by one, the kittens were plucked and petted, each one heading to its new family. Eventually, I was alone. I listed hard, straining my ears for sounds of Brother and the sisters. My ears were met with silence. At last night fell and I was returned to the barn. I snuggled up against my mother who was, for the first time, disappointed. She had hoped that despite my small size and orange hair that someone would have made me his or her pet.

Pet. How I loathed the word. I mean I understand that it meant I was a part of something bigger than I was, but I never wanted to leave my mother. In addition, I still had questions for the crotchety old bag that lived in the loft. Rung by rung, I climbed the ladder, certain not to look down.

"I knew you would come," a voice said, cold and cruel. I looked around before seeing her glowing yellow eyes from the darkest corner of the loft.

"You knew I would come?" I asked naively. She stepped out from the darkness, her body long since returned to the trimness it had once been.

"Nine kittens, I had, and you," she said coldly. "My only regret was not succeeding in killing you at birth."

"Why did you want to kill me? Did you love my father enough to keep me like you did the others?" I asked. Ah such youth, so wanting, and all I wanted was for her to realize she had made a mistake. I wanted her to love me. No dice.

"Love your father? I don't even know what your father was. I was in heat and hopped up on catnip. I didn't care who filled my void, so long as it was being filled. I had many partners that night, some of which I remember clearly, and some who were only a vague dream," she said as she licked her paw and rubbed her ear bored. Her voice seemed unconcerned. "It is a part of life. You should only be so lucky to find a female in heat and on catnip; though I daresay I do hope you never make it to maturity."

"Cat, you stop that this minute," my mother called from down below.

"Or what, Dog, you will come up here?" Cat teased sassily. She purred tauntingly and turned to me. "Once you realize you are the root of evil, you will do us all a favor and jump in front of a truck." She hissed and lunged at me with her claws drawn. Her nails bit into my flesh and the two of us tumbled from the loft. I landed hard in the hay, certain I mustn't be a cat since I landed on my back and knocked the wind from my body. Mother ran to my side and licked me to my senses.

"Crookie, are you ok?" My mother asked me as she sniffed and licked me back to life. I nodded as I pulled myself to my feet.

"I'm fine," I said as I shook the hay from my fur.

"Don't you know you are supposed to land on you feet?" Mother whispered as she urged me away from the hay. I glanced back to see Cat speared on the forklift. Her aim was a little misguided again. I think she meant for it to be a 'me-kabob', instead it was her who ran through the last of her nine lives.

I was quite content to live in the barn forever with Mother but fate apparently had blessed me with knowledge above knowledge. I knew Mother was going to die. I could feel it, and I even told mother of it. She assured me she was feeling quite fine and that I was not to worry. Therefore, I feigned that I wasn't worrying and I frolicked and played as mother insisted.

"Crookie, a family has come for you," Mother whispered as her ears perked up. I purred in delight but in sadness as well, as I knew mother would be alone. Sensing my reluctance and conflict, she nuzzled me. "Son, nothing would make me happier than you being happy with a new, younger family."

Martha and Jack Huxley had come to bring me home and surprise their daughter, Dee, with me. I played with the ribbon the woman teased me with while I listened. Mother watched carefully as I bonded with my new human, my first human. It wasn't long before I was perched in my human's lap heading away from the farm and to my new life with my new family.

Dee was thrilled to have me. She dressed me in outfits and cuddled me, much as I suppose a six year old would their pet. I had become someone's pet. Dee had a bright and sunny room, and while she was off at school during the day I would crawl up on the soft, flowery bedspread and sleep their as the sun splayed across it in the mid morning. By lunch time, I would stalk down the stairs where I had my very own fancy dish.

Dee started calling me Tiger which, while it was not my name, I did not mind. If my mother was the only one who called me Crookie that was fine by me. As it was, I was almost certain Mother named me Cookie, not Crookie, but every C-word had the Cr-word sound, so Crookie it was. Chalk it up to the growls and barks of a dog, I suppose.

When Dee was seven, things started to happen around the house. I didn't have anyone to explain to me what was going on, so it freaked me out a bit. I would be sitting on a windowsill, watching squirrels running about chattering, when things would just fly through the air. It usually corresponded when Dee was having a particularly bad temper tantrum. It was, apparently, magic.

After my third aeronautical trip through the living room, it was determined that I might be best served to live with a sweeter temperamental girl by the name of Chloe Cartwright. She was ten now, almost eleven, and she was much more in control of her emotions than Dee. I felt bad for Dee, my first human, but Chloe's gentle love for me made me all but forget about Dee.

When Chloe was eleven, I was placed in a basket and placed on a trolley with Chloe's school trunk. I had listened to the words of the sweet and gentle Chloe as she spoke of a place called Hogwarts. It sounded quite lovely, and I knew she was excited. She promised me I wouldn't be bored there; there was so much to learn.

"Kip, you are sure to love this place," Chloe whispered nervously as she took me from my basket. We were both on our very first train ride to places unknown. "There is an old castle that is sure to be brimming to the rafters with mice."

So there were, naturally, mice and things for me to entertain myself with while we attended Hogwarts. Seven years of education zipped by as if only a single day, it seemed. So much happened while we were there, Quidditch and classes, we had the times of our lives. Chloe confided in me that she was in love, certainly, and she was certain he loved her back. It was there in Hogwarts that I met the first of many Potters.

Ryan Potter was a tall boy, even when he and Chloe were first years. I had seen him often in the common room, curious about Chloe but quiet and reserved. It was Chloe that had approached him, befriending him. Though they were both apparently pure blooded witches and wizards, they both needed help with some tasks, and were a perfect balance of strengths and weaknesses.

I don't remember when things got serious between them. It must have been closer to the end of the sixth year. Chloe had dated Jeffery Longbottom in the fourth year, which was a relief when they didn't work out. He was sweet, but just not daring enough for Chloe. She craved a little more daring of a relationship. In Chloe's fifth and much of her sixth year, she crossed the Gryffindor-Slytherin line and dated Abraxas Malfoy. Whether he really, truly cared for Chloe, I don't know. Ultimately, they broke up over their beliefs.

Abraxas believed that all muggles and muggle-born students were less than the pure blood witches and wizards, and should be treated as such. He knew Chloe was pure blood, and he wrongly assumed that either she felt the same or could be convinced. He was mistaken. My Chloe was much stronger than that, and she told him to change his beliefs or they were through. Abraxas couldn't decide, so Chloe made the decision for them. She told him at Hogsmeade over a pint of fire whiskey.

I still remember that night and many nights that followed that night. Chloe wept into my fur, her arms around me possessively. I was sad for her, but I knew it was for the best. This wasn't a little disagreement of something silly or simple. This was a major sticking point. Still, Chloe was heart broken that Abraxas chose his beliefs that he was superior over his love for Chloe. It still hurt.

It was Ryan that comforted her. The Potters and the Malfoys had been enemies for as long as they could remember. No one could remember why, but it seemed that every generation added a little fuel to the fire. Ryan wasn't there to stoke the family resentment, but his tender actions toward Chloe didn't go unnoticed. In the end, they sort of just fell together. Chloe, Ryan, and I made a right little threesome as the two of them grew closer.

"Why does it seem like your cat's looking at me?" Ryan asked as the two of them hung out by the lake. Chloe shrugged.

"Kip's my protector," Chloe said as she scratched my fur gently. I purred with appreciation as she hit all the right spots. The two of them looked up at Abraxas Malfoy and Tavius Black stalked across the large lawn with Eileen Prince and Malfoy's goons, Gunther Crabbe and Barrett Goyle. Chloe looked nervously at Ryan and the two of them gripped their wands.

"So, Chloe, I see you and Potter have decided to shag up," Malfoy sneered. Chloe tensed up greatly, and without a second though, I pounced on them in a whirl of wild, crazy ginger fur. I drew blood and sent the group of them running to the castle, long before Jeffery Longbottom or Piven Johansson could come to the rescue.

"Chloe, that is one suicidal cat," Ryan teased as Chloe held me in her arms. I was hurt, but it was nothing that I couldn't recover from with love and time.

"Sometimes I hate their rich, pompous attitudes," Chloe grumbled. Ryan laughed.

"I am glad that my family and none of theirs has every crossed. Malfoys and Potters don't mix, nor do Blacks and Potters," Ryan said.

"Potters just don't mix well with others at all," Longbottom said. Chloe laughed.

"Potters don't play well with others," Chloe said.

"I hope that Potter and Cartwright can mix well and play well together," Ryan had said. "Forever and ever."

Yeah, that was Ryan Potter's idea of a proposal their seventh year. I was nearly dropped on my head by Chloe when he asked, and sure enough, she said yes to him. I was nearly crushed between her breast and his chest. It was rather quite endearing to have her so happy and loved. I was already nine, and I knew I wouldn't be there to watch over her forever. I had maybe a few years left in my feline body, and it was comforting to know Ryan would continue to care for her for the rest of her life.

Being Kip Potter had its perks, I have to say. In Potter Estates, I had my own room complete with toys and things to awaken the kitten within me. It was there that I was introduced to the finest imported catnip, and I became an addict. Chloe was careful to dole it out in little amounts to me, but still I became an addict. Potter Estates didn't have mice or rats for me to chase and catch, but it had some of the sweetest catnip in the world. How I loved that imported catnip.

It was at Potter Estates that I met Ritzy, a pure bred whatever kind of cat she was. She was my first, last, only. She was older than I was and only lived a year or so after we began our love affair. It was the best year or so of my life. Apparently Ritzy and I weren't the only two in a serious, physical relationship. That year James Potter joined the world.

I wasn't fond of James, to be entirely honest. He smelled of milk, which always peaked my curiosity, but his nanny was appalled that I jumped into the crib to explore the source of that tantalizing smell. I associated James with pain, and just when I thought that he was about to redeem himself, he would end up solidifying the pain in my life. He puked on me, pulled my tail, and stepped on me over the years. My happiest day was the day that he went off to Hogwarts.

"Mom, don't you think Kip is a little too old to still, you know, be here?" James asked that summer before his sixth year when his best friend, Sirius Black moved in to my room. I was upgraded to sleeping in a wicker basket by Chloe's bed.

"James, how awful," Chloe cried as she scooped me up. "He can hear you."

"It's not like he understand anything we say," James said. I hissed at Sirius, not because he smelled of dog, no, but because he was just as mischievous and naughty as James was, who spent many summer days practically torturing me with that exotic catnip, even me in my old age.

"He understands everything perfectly," Chloe said as she cradled me. "He's not too old to be here. Don't you listen to those nasty boys, Kip!"

In all honesty, I had already certainly out lived my mother and my generation. Thirty eight years was twice as long as any cat should live, and most lived much, much shorter lives. I still didn't know what made me special, and frankly I could careless. I just know that at thirty-eight, I was considered very, very old. I didn't feel it, granted, but it was very, very old.

When Chloe died, I was there, by her side. It came up suddenly, the fever. I didn't listen much to what they said, the doctors. It had already claimed Ryan quite quickly, something he had picked up in the forests of Transylvania. He had passed it along to Chloe. I was there every moment, counting her heart beats as I felt them through her skin and my fur. I lay across her breast like a child, and yet I willed her to pass the disease on to me. Long after she had lost the ability to speak, we communicated through breaths.

James was a real trouper, and he brought with him his new bride, Lily. She was of good soul, no doubt. We cats can sense this about people from time to time. Her goodness practically wept from her pores. When the doctors suggested that I am removed during Chloe's final hours, Lily and James both shot them down.

"Kip, you needn't worry," Lily murmured as she caressed my fur. Lily turned to Chloe. "Mother Potter, I will make sure that Kip is taken care of as if I had raised him myself."

Chloe smiled. She hadn't smiled in ages, the pain of the fever prevented it, but with me nuzzling her chin and Lily and James standing there, Chloe smiled. She had been the greatest owner I could have ever hoped for, and I purred my thanks to her. Chloe had obviously been a wonderful mother, for James had chosen a wonderful wife who was going to be my new human. It was a fact of life. Chloe was going to die. I could sense it.

Even though I thought that I was prepared for Chloe's death, I couldn't have even imagine the hurt I felt. When Ritzy died, I was sad but she was old, and it was her time. It felt like Chloe had been ripped mercilessly from my life. It was just too much for one cat to bear. I felt her take her last breath below me, and I wished that it was my last breath. I tried to hold my breath, to be taken by the angel of death to remain with my dear Chloe.

Eventually, the sadness stopped hurting nearly as much and life naturally continued on without regard to whom it left behind. Another baby joined our family, and I met Harry Potter. Harry, unlike James, was curious but not hauntingly so. Perhaps even at the tender age of one, he knew I was still mourning the loss of Chloe, therefore didn't yank my tail or gnaw my ears as hard as his father had. Perhaps I just was tougher to weather such abuse then.

Then, they were gone. I had gone out that night, Halloween, to do the things us cats do at night to wash away the pain of the constant reminders of Chloe. I liked Lily well enough, but my heart lay with Chloe, six feet under in the Potter family plot. There was no denying it. I had taken up to taunting dogs, a way of trying to be the best cat I could be, since I had been a cat for over forty years now and the there seemed to be no tunnel to salvation.

I returned to find our home at Godric Hallow destroyed. Rushing in, I found James crumpled on the floor. I checked him and to my horror, he was dead. I rushed upstairs to find Lily in the same sad state. I nudged her, hoping naively that it would waken her, but I knew she was dead. You could smell the faint scent of death in the air. Then, the crying came. It was a hesitant, uncertain wail. I looked up to find young Harry looking at his mother, willing her to rise, a very disconcerting scar on his forehead.

I followed Harry to his aunt and uncles' house, determined not to let that boy out of my sight. If I had been there, perhaps he would have still had his mother. He was Chloe's grandson, and by God, he was mine to protect now. Try as I may, though, his aunt and uncle had other plans. Their nasty little boy, Dudley, kicked at me in the yard and eventually the pound had come to take me away. It was believed, erroneously, that I belonged to Mrs. Figg.

I didn't take care of whom I was adopted by over the next years. Every new family I was adopted by were just obstacles until I was reunited with my Harry. The minute my new challenge, I mean family, let down their guard or left a door or window open just enough, I was gone.

I was forced to give up when I was delivered to a pet shop of sorts in Diagon Alley. For six years, I was stuffed in a basket entirely too small for my body. I had hopes that someone would buy me and give me another chance to take care of my Harry. He was six now, and would be showing signs of magic. Who better to be his friend when his nasty little family couldn't begin to understand? I had already been through three generations of coming of magical age, Chloe, James, and now this would be the third, young Harry.

However, it wasn't meant to be. For six years, I sat in my basket, growing fatter and lazier. No one wanted a cat as old as me, and people only thought I was eight! Imagine how they would have felt if they knew I was so close to fifty! They couldn't have known, though, and I remained in my too small basket. The shop owner was nice enough, but he was more focused on Owls, toads, and stupid rats.

It was that stupid, evil, sinful rat that brought me back to my Harry, though I would still have loved to have been the one to rip his throat out and let him die a slow, bloody death. It was by chance that a freckly boy with a rather sick looking rat came into the shop with a bushy haired girl and a boy that looked so much like my James Potter, I had to take a second look. I could have stared all day, though it was the rat that drew something more than my cat-like nature. I could smell the betrayal of the Potters on him, and there he was with his sinister looking beady eyes darting around. I pounced, ready to rip his throat from his neck.

"Oy," the freckle kid screamed as he retrieved the rat out of my clutches. He and my James look-alike left. The shop keeper apologized to the bushy haired girl as he shoved me back into my too small basket. She was a sweet girl, and she reminded me a lot of my Chloe. The girl peered into the basket and caressed my fur.

"Hullo there, Crookshank," she murmured. "I'm Hermione Granger."

By the grace of God, she purchased me, and a bigger basket. I couldn't have been happier. I was certain that if my math was corrected, that boy that looked like James was about Harry's age, or the age he should be. When I saw him again on the train, I was in heaven. My new own, my Hermione, had brought me to Harry and they were friends. There was no need for me to run away to find Harry, he was there within reach.

For all of their second and third year, I hunted that rat with extreme prejudice. It was that third year that James' best friend, Sirius, and I finally exposed that rat for the rat he was, Peter, who had betrayed Lily and James. It would never bring them back, but Harry finally had Sirius, his rightful guardian. Though the rat escaped, there was hope. There was always hope.

Even at fifty-something, I had hope and dreams. I hoped that I would continue to lover Hermione as much as I loved Chloe and I wished for a day that I would close my eyes and never awake. Whatever I was, I hope that the immortality wouldn't last forever. Forever was such a long time, and we all have a season. I just hoped that I would enter the winter season of my life and finally rejoin Chloe in the after.


End file.
